Tokyo
by misa los domingos
Summary: Fye x Kurogane
1. Chapter 1

**takes place the first night in Tokyo, after Kurogane confronts Fye about "hiding his affections for those around him with smiles and aloofness, but that it's a coverup" (hope I got that quote semi-right) and Fye admits that Kurogane is smarter than the average ninja :) MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD, BE WARNED. hope you enjoy, thx xo**

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Fye rises from where he'd been curled up on the floor and walks toward the sleeping clones. Yes, they're clones. He knows. He's absolutely sure about Syaoran, and he's guessing very well that Sakura is one too. That's just what Fei Wang Reed would do, make another copy of the vessel he needs for his ultimate plan.

Gently, he picks up the sleeping Syaoran, tsking at how hot the boy's skin in, and hoping that the fever breaks by morning. Syaoran groans but lets himself be pulled onto the bed where the princess lays sleeping with Mokona. Fye pulls the cover over both of them. He sighs very deeply.

"Fei Wang Reed, the depths of your evil are unfathomable..." Fye thinks of his own brother smashing against the concrete floor and Fei Wang Reed's finger pointing at his self.

Does this Syaoran love this Sakura? he thinks. Truly? Enough? He runs a hand through his golden curls in consternation. Everything can change, he knows that. He knows _he_ loves this Syaoran enough, and what if Syaoran's power becomes so strong that Fye must kill him as well as the original? What if Ashura awakens? That overwhelming guilt, a wave of colors, blossoms up from within his magician's heart and if he hadn't made his decision to save his brother he'd run down to that water reservoir below City Hall and magic up that feather himself, just to escape the wretched cycle he's placed on himself, return it to Sakura and move on, because this city, this _Tokyo_, is too dangerous, too dark and he knows something terrible will happen.

The guilt and the panic turn into a strange kind of laughter, when tears form.

"Kuro-tan" he whispers unthinkingly. "Kuro-tan, you see what I want so badly to hide." Kurogane's fingerprints will form bruises upon Fye's snow-white arm, he can feel them.

Eventually, as he walks along his heart's dark thorny path, he finds himself in the room he's to share with the ninja warrior. Kurogane's cranky for many reasons, Fye guesses one of them being lack of alcohol. If water is as precious as it is in this acid-rain city there's certainly no _sake_ anywhere.

"Is the fur-ball watching over the kid and the princess?" Kurogane grunts by way of greeting.

Fye nods. "Yes."

"Goodnight, then." Kurogane turns on the bed. He doesn't even cover the blanket over himself, just holds on to his sword.

Fye and Kurogane have had to share beds before but they've never been this emotionally tense. Fye remembers that Kurogane, though having gone through much pain, madness, and, consequently, self-mastering, is still only a child next to himself, who's already lived lifetime-worths. He wants to believe in this child and protect it, but he's probably more honorable than Fye. Now, to tell the child... Oh, but what's the use? What would telling Kurogane the truth about the past really accomplish if this whole mess is plodding along all according to Reed's plan? He can't get closer to these children, he can't afford to put their lives in danger, he can only smile and encourage them, and if Kurogane weren't so strong and smart, that could be easier. But Kurogane is the very best at what Fye is worst at, which is facing obstacles head-on. He reclines next to the ninja and listens and waits for his even sleep-breathing but it doesn't come. It doesn't come and for hours they lie awake, haunted by their pasts and their duties and, mostly, by the strangeness of their circumstances.

Fye weeps silently, feeling more alone than he'd been trapped down in that sinners' ditch in Valeria. Kurogane grips his wrist, quicker than lightning, and mutters, "if you're not going to say anything, don't blubber."

The magician recoils.

"Why force me into vulnerability?" Kurogane demands in a deadly tone.

"Because you care, too? About Syaoran and the princess and Mokona. And, perhaps," Fye chuckles sadly, "even me."

Kurogane grips him by the collar.

"Let's finish what we began earlier, and cut the bullshit," he says. His face is inches away from Fye's, who can't seem to look at him. "You want to tell me things, but you also want to 'protect,' and that kind of cowardly phoniness isn't worthy of someone as magical as you."

"You're very right, and I swear, I'm not patronizing you. I'm frightened."

"Good, then, you're one step closer to not being a dishonest piece of crap." Kurogane's eyes won't leave Fye's face. But he pulls back when he realizes how close they are.

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**to be continued**


	2. Chapter 2

chapter ii

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"Language, Kurgs."

"Shut up!"

Fye did.

They fall asleep to the sound of one another's breathing. Kurogane can tell Fye's seams are fraying. Something tells him Fye is much older than him, though he appears to be the same age. As this labored and cumulatively emotional journey has continued, Kurogane's felt out the congenial wizard's hidden darkness, smoothed over its surface and sensed the electricity within, the pulsating artery of Fye's secrets, and Kurogane has struggled between wanting to pierce that abyss and wrestle with the man so as to force the substance out of him. The mage is so airy, so flippant and buoyant, it frazzled the warrior's nerves. No one has ever affected him so much. No one he's ever called ally before, anyway. If Kurogane can call Fye ally...

The next day's events prove absolutely horrific, and Kurogane's strength drives him to surprise himself: he identifies with the guilt-torn magician, the one who _would_ have given up everything for the kid and Sakura, like he told that bastard clone, and if he weren't such a bloodthirsty human he'd feel pride in being so noble and tender when the situation demanded. But the thirst for the battle keeps the mind away from such sentimental vanities, thank the spirits. Now, he feels the slight loss of blood from his right wrist and anticipates how it will feel when that idiot begins drinking from him. He'll feel it badly, a warrior senses all loss and gain of chi. The acid rain falls and falls and he can't bear to look at that other kid's bat symbol so he gives him a cloak to cover up as everyone ponders the princess' life-threatening excursion.

"Good morning, Kurogane," is what he gets instead of humble admission, and Kurogane wishes he were the type to regret things because maybe he should have let the blond waif die.

Then the princess comes back and he understands what this whole excursion is about, because Sakura is something beautiful, as beautiful as Fye would be if he gave himself over to nobility, but Kurogane doesn't like to get that sentimental. For now, he'll feel content knowing the princess is back safe, that though she's hiding secrets she has the right to. All women seem to have the right to, beginning with Tomoyo, his mistress. Kurogane ponders the similarities between the two princesses before scoffing and returning to the comfort of his manlihood, securing their exit out of this god-forsaken Tokyo (it sounds a hell of a lot like something Japanese, he swears) and querying dutifully to this new Syaoran how much of Kurogane's training he was able to truly absorb just by watching out of clone-Syaoran's right eye.

They get to Infinity, where Kurogane drinks alcohol and Fye reluctantly drinks his blood. It's enthralling and fascinating and diverting, because the ninja knows to control his pleasures, knows that he naturally revels in flouncing his warrior skills at the permission of chess-player gothic Sakura as leader of this mafia-run game of wits, and can hold his own as Fye falls apart. Though secretly he longs to bury himself in addiction, wants to shake the new Syaoran until he admits he's got dirty deals with bastard Fei Wong Reed, he finds something in the alcohol that makes him melancholic, or perhaps it's just the blood-loss. That magician's darkness swells, like something else Kurogane knows swells in nature, and he laughs because a warrior knows human anatomy too well as it related to chi and psychic power.

The mage's darkness is like a mental hard-on, and Kurogane wishes to show off his own but with erect nobility. How honorable does that make him, truly, though? Oh, princess Tomoyo. She would know.

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**to be continued. **


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